Podcast

West Coast Boho Meets Mid-Century Modern Living Room Reveal

This post is in partnership with City Furniture and contains affiliate links. As always all thoughts and opinions are my own.

SO excited to finally reveal our living room! This room was definitely the hardest to tackle for a few reasons:

1) It’s shaped a little oddly.

You see it is “normal” in the sense that it’s just a rectangular room, but it’s a little odd in the section we decided to place the TV. A portion of the TV wall is cut short for a staircase. Meaning the TV sits in the middle of that wall, but not in the middle of the room? I don’t even know if that makes sense, but for someone crazy about symmetry it was frustrating.

2) We have reallyyyy high ceilings!

Which is a total blessing, but a major dilemma when deciding whether or not to put holes in our rental! At one point, we finally decided to put a shelf above the TV. It was going to be so pretty – all boho feeling with some plants, a beautiful gold mirror, and art… until…

#AdultingRealityCheck #1:

We went to nail in the shelf and realized there was a metal stud! OOPS! I wasn’t about to make out lives any harder, so we decided to go ultra minimalist with just a wall hanging. – which is also a little too far to the right than I would like because of a stud… oh well!

Life Lesson: Check for studs!

3) The theme.

Originally I dreamt of a farmhouse living room. I have the driftwood entertainment center you may remember from my jungalow inspired office reveal. We planned on putting in our living room. My desk, was supposed to be our dining room table (also driftwood). However, our living room and kitchen are all open and flow into each other. The kitchen has brown granite counters and the cabinets are an autumn mapley wood (is that a thing? it is now). The grey woods were just too much of a contrast and ended up in my office.

To say I felt at a loss with what to do with this room is an understatement. Especially since many of you may remember we had no furniture except the two pieces I just mentioned when we moved in. No couch. No coffee table. Nothing. For months we walked through this room, playing fetch with Tucker, and dreamt about what it could be… when we stumbled across the Dollar Shave Club CEO’s home. Inspiration struck! West Coast Boho meets Midcentury Yes. Fun to push ourselves creatively? YASS!

West Coast Boho Meets Mid Century Modern

The Couch:

Let’s start with the non-negotiable first purchase: the Delilah couch from City Furniture. This couch is life. E and I sat on it during one of our many furniture store runs and immediately new it was heaven on earth and needed it. Originally we planned on getting the couch and love seat version, but due to the pesky townhouse wall situation I mentioned, we opted for the small sectional (it comes in a large sectional too!).

The seats are a down and fiber cushion blend and extra deeppp, like the deepest couch I’ve ever sat on deep. It makes you feel cozy. Like being enveloped in a cloud cozy. The cover is a white denim that’s super soft, and can be removed and washed! They make the couch in grey too, which I heavily considered since a lot of people told us we’re crazy for getting a white couch, but we love it. Since it’s denim I figured we could always spray it with some sort of waterproof protectant I used to see my dad spray on his khakis — I would assume, we haven’t done this since we opted for the stain protection plan where they will actually come out and replace the couch if it needs!

#AdultingRealityCheck #2:

We live in a three story town house. Which means our living room is on the second floor. Like I said, we have really high ceilings so I never though the length of the couch would be an issue. However, if you caught my insta-story a while back, we simply could not get it up the first flight! We tried everything and it wouldn’t work. I was on the verge of tears when the amazing delivery guys from City Furniture suggested getting the sectional instead. I was SO nervous because I thought the sectional would be too big for the room and my heart was SO set on this couch (seriously, if you sat on it, your heart would be set on it too!).

Lesson Learned: Measure everything!

Measure the space you plan on putting the piece in, doorways, stairs, hallways and anywhere else the piece will need to be navigated through!

I measured out the tiles for the small sectional and it fit! It really is perfect. I’m thrilled we ended up with the sectional too, it’s so easy to swap the ends around and this little corner section has basically become my second office:

Alright, now that we have our dream couch and a theme, it’s time to tackle the other pieces in the room.

The Coffee Table:

#AdultingRealityCheck #3:

I had always been in love with this coffee table from West Elm. Again, not being the best at this whole decorating thing and riding my high of this new theme, I impulsively jumped the gun and bought the table when they were doing a sale… totally forgetting to check the dimensions. It’s a little thinner than I would like, given how big our couch is, but it’s fine. The other thing I didnt’ consider is that it’s marble.

I always heard don’t buy marble, but never understood why until we got our first couple of water drops on it… oops! I still need to properly seal the table and accidentally got a lotttt of lemon juice on it. I acted fast and coated the stain with baking soda and peroxide mixture but it still has some etchings. Andddd that’s why we can’t have nice things folks.

The Entertainment Center:

With a couch and a table, I was starting to feel good. Only every midcentury modern entertainment center or buffet table I came across was $1,000-$7,000. Panic was starting to set in. Would this project ever get finished?!? At that point in our lives, weekly HomeGoods trips were the norm. We were doing a return, when I said let’s do a quick lap around. I turned the first corner and I saw it. The perfect entertainment center:

At $250 we felt like we had just won the lottery! While we waited to load it into our car, so many people went up to it and wanted it… but it was ourrssss! *happy dance*

Around The TV:

Like I mentioned, the TV wall was a struggle. Once we decided to skip the shelf and keep it minimalist, I knew we needed a plant. I was set on a fiddle leaf fig tree, but have a black thumb. For months I searched trying to find a faux one I loved and just kept coming back to this one from Pottery Barn. I decided to use this basket from Lulu & Georgia as it’s planter.

Layered Rugs:

The carpet was also an impulse decision! I had seen/read about the layered rug trend but had no intention of ever trying it. While at Nordstrom Rack I saw the above blue and white towel. Yes towel. That’s a BATH TOWEL! I thought it was SO cute and would be perfect for our living room — but, also like weird. Who puts a towel in their living room?! When I came across the neutral weaved rug below it and got a crazy idea: what if I try the layered rug trend, but with this towel I’m in love with? My husband thought I was legit crazy in the store. Skeptical AF that this would work, I laid them down, topped with the table and voila! We were in love! Total cost? less than $60!

The Book Shelf:

The bookshelf in the back corner was a Gilt find, but I also found it on Amazon here. It was originally supposed to go in my office where the banana leaf tapestry and couch are. But then I ended up with the couch and decided to move it upstairs. Truthfully, it’s in our living room right now, but I always envisioned it in a babies room, so that’s where it will probably make it’s way in time since it’s not a perfect fit in that corner. For now, it’s holding our memories and I love it.

The Accents:

The accents were really fun to play around with. Since we are starting from scratch I wanted to find some good deals. The black and white textured pillows were actually $6 from Target! I decided to grab the color blocked geometric shape pillows on sale from Target as well since they reminded me a little of our inspo room. They are sold out of all of them except this one, but here are some similar options here and here.

In the future, I think I want to swap these out for some geometric designs with rich brown leather, powder blue and blush in the color scheme similar to the look and feel of Kaekoo‘s (seriously check out her pillows, they are so pretty!). The cactus pillows were a last minute impulse buy on sale at Nordstrom Rack.

Nordstrom rack was pretty clutch for the book shelf actually. I grabbed all of the candles, tin buckets, and cactus goodies from there:

The orange vase is from Target. The picture frames and plant are from Homegoods. You guys already know I have a pink Himalayan salt lamp in every room #obsessed. And this little skull figurine was a Goodwill find.

The Heart Of Our Home

Truthfully, there is still a lot I want to switch up in terms of the accents. I’d love to splurge on the right pillows some day that would be a bit richer and warmer instead of so bright. I think it would be a great way to tie in the warmer tones of the entertainment center and coffee table. But I was looking to get the accents done pretty cost effectively which I think we succeeded on (also a reason why you can’t shop a lot of them!)

The Delilah couch is an absolute steal too! I honestly was shocked at how inexpensive it was! In fact, when checking out, I started talking with one of the City Furniture employees and he said it’s such a good deal that countless people actually ship it up north because for the quality and price point they are still coming out ahead of buying one up north!

We really do love our living room! It’s become the heart of our home which is so cool since we spent so many years in one bedroom furnished apartments with super uncomfortable living rooms! We love playing board games, taking naps or watching movies on the couch, and chasing Tucker around in there.

And that’s it for our West Coast Boho Meets Mid-Century Modern Living Room!

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I'm Rachel, the founder of The Confused Millennial, a lifestyle blog sharing personal experience and advice to help other confused millennials navigate this whole "#adulting" thing on topics like careers, entrepreneurship, finance, the home, relationships and more.
After earning my Master's Degree in Counseling, and landing my "dream job" I found myself feeling completely miserable with no work-life balance. I rectified the situation by getting in touch with my passions and started coaching millennials to create their own blog or business that they could turn into a fulfilling and sustainable career. My expertise has been seen on Forbes as a contributing writer, Fast Company, Brit + Co, Dailyworth, and more. Learn more about working together on turning your blog into a business here.

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About Me

Hi there! I'm Rachel, the founder of #TCMillennial. I am a multi-passionate millennial who loves helping others embrace who they truly are while figuring out this whole "adult" thing. On the blog, you'll find all things #adulting like: real talk, tips for professional development, and so much more! If you want to write a guest post or request a topic, get in touch!